Sunday, July 23, 2017

There was no hope, or so I believed. She was so ill, my sweet
little daughter. My wife had already given up and hovered by the bed waiting
for the final breath, wrapped six miles deep in gloom. It was stifling; it was
unbearable. I have always been a man of action, a man does not get to my
position by wishful thinking, and I had to act. When the usual things do not
work, you try the unusual things, even the risky ones if you are desperate
enough, and I was desperate. To see that precious life snuffed out would be
like helplessly watching the sun set knowing it would never rise again. I have
always been a pious man, a ruler of the synagogue, so I cried out to God, and,
within the space of a breath, I remembered the Teacher from Nazareth.

I had heard he was nearby, so I flung on my cloak and went
forth to seek him. It wasn’t difficult, I only had to follow the noise of the
crowd, and there he was, unmistakable, at its centre, while the people thronged
around him, each one wanting something from him. Well, I couldn’t fault them
for that, I desperately wanted something from him as well. People recognised me
and let me through, and before I knew what I was doing, I found myself
prostrate at his feet, begging him to come and heal my little one – I who had
never begged any man for anything before! He looked into my face as if he were
searching my very soul, and immediately agreed.

We made slow progress through the crowd, with everyone
wanting something from him as he passed, but he stayed focused on me except for
one incident with a woman who touched him. I was inwardly screaming with
impatience, so I didn’t follow exactly what went on, but I said nothing,
because I didn’t dare offend him.

And then, when we were properly on our way, some of my own people
met us, and told us we were too late, she was already dead. It was as if my
heart left my body and plunged into an abyss of darkness. But the Teacher
seemed quite unperturbed, he turned to me and said, “Don’t be afraid, only
believe.” I wondered what I was supposed to believe, but I was too shattered to
say anything, and simply, blindly, kept going with him. He let no one else,
except 3 of his disciples, come any further with us.

He swept into the house and dismissed the mourners and all
their cacophony, telling them that she was not dead, only asleep, and they
laughed at him; but though they offered him only the bitter laughter that one
gives to the lunatic pedlar of impossible hopes, they scattered when he told
them, and I marvelled, briefly at his authority. Greater marvels were to come, though,
for he bent over my little one, took her hand and bid her to rise. And it was
as if the dawn came while the sunset still lingered in the sky, for she rose
from her bed and walked, and hope walked into our lives again, a doorway into
glory.

And then, in the most ordinary way possible, he told us to
give her food.

And I began to glimpse that, somehow, in this one man, heaven
and earth had joined together. It was much later before I fully understood.

Monday, July 10, 2017

I will tell you the truth, I never expected to come to a good
end. From my childhood I was one of those boys marked out for trouble, running
wild and getting into bad company. It would be easy to blame all my family’s
woes on the Roman tax system, but the truth is (and I can admit that now after
years and years when my scalding hatred of Rome was the thing that propelled me
on), my parents were wastrels, lazy, careless and concerned for nothing but
their own immediate gratification. If they had been very rich, perhaps it
wouldn’t have mattered so much, or perhaps they would have plunged even faster
into every kind of degradation. I know now that, while Rome certainly isn’t
blameless (all kingdoms except one squeeze as much as they can out of the people
at the bottom), it was only the catalyst that hastened my family’s inevitable
destruction. But my parents blamed Rome for every bad thing that happened, and,
as a child, I believed them. It is always easier to blame an external enemy.

So I grew up without a trade, without an inheritance, and
with a deep anger burning in my heart. Is it any wonder that I gravitated
towards the rebels and the robbers. Truth to tell, we were nothing more than a
band of brigands, carving out our own little niche on the Jerusalem-Jericho
road, which was infested with our kind, but we told ourselves that we were
nobly resisting Roman rule, striking a blow for freedom; and we were foolish
enough to believe our own lies. In fact we rarely attacked Romans of any kind,
they were far too well defended. It was our own people, and heedless foreigners
that we usually attacked, telling ourselves that they wouldn’t be rich enough
to steal from if they weren’t collaborating with Rome. It is extraordinary the
lengths we will go to so that we can justify ourselves and be heroes in our own
imaginations, when the squalid truth was that we were simply criminals.

Of course I ended up getting caught, I wasn’t nearly as
clever as I thought I was, and in one of the periodic clearances of the area I
didn’t get away fast enough. Then I languished in prison until my execution
date was set. I had time to do a lot of thinking then, being forced to sit
still and quiet for once in my life, and some of my realisations really made me
squirm. I got chatty with some of the guards and began to realise that perhaps
these Roman soldiers didn’t exactly have the wonderful life I’d always envied.
They also told me news of what was going on in the city (conversation helps
pass the time, even for a guard) and inevitably I started hearing about Jesus,
the teacher from Nazareth. I was fascinated.

The day came for my execution. Any man would be terrified of
crucifixion, and I was no exception. As we walked the streets to Golgotha I
noticed the crowds and realised it must be Passover. I had lost count of the
days, and, anyway, whoever heard of keeping Passover in a robber’s den? So much
for our allegiance to our own people!

Everyone knows the horrors of crucifixion, I don’t need to go
there. It was only after I was strung up there in agony that I realised, from
the things that the crowd were saying, that the man on the cross next to me was
Jesus. I looked at him, I looked at myself, and noticed the difference. But
mostly I looked at him, even in my extremity, I couldn’t tear my eyes away. And
when the thief on the cross on the other side started mocking him as well, it
was too much. With a last surge of my own anger, I said, “Don’t you fear God?
We are under the same sentence, be we deserve our punishment. This man has done
has done nothing wrong!”

And as I said those words, understanding came. I do not know
fully who he is or what he is doing, but I knew enough. And I knew that all my
life I had misunderstood everything. I turned to him, and the tears in my eyes
were no longer from the pain. Brokenhearted, with no more pride, no more anger I
simply begged, “remember me when you come into your kingdom.

He looked me fully in the eye and replied, “I tell you the
truth, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

It is almost the end. My agony will be over soon. But I am no
longer afraid. I am with Jesus.

About Me

Mother of two grown up kids,and very long time married, after many years as a full-time mum, then a part-time theological student I'm now trying to be useful in my local church whilst working out what the next step is.I'm passionate about Jesus, treasure the people in my life and dream of being a preacher. I'm a would-be poet, a slightly eccentric cook, and an INFP (which must explain something).
And I'm a pickle: a weird shaped lump of something-or-other, a bit salty, a bit sweet, definitely an acquired taste, preserved by the grace of God and trying to add a bit of flavour to the blandness of modern life.